PROTO-Na'vi

[Swoka Swizaw]

Lately, I've been contemplating (and strangely infatuated with) the future of English. Considering, right now, how it appears like our collective futures are in some question, more conlangers seem to have taken an interest in future versions of their own languages; sort of like a heritage thing. Anyway, I started to, then, contemplate the future of the Na'vi language. Na'vi, unto itself, appears, to me, like a relatively early language, most reminiscent of ancient Chinese, which had a considerably large inventory and free order, phonetically. If this is in some way true, Na'vi has a lot evolving it CAN do. It can lose some phones, gain a few, lose a few clusters - that sort of thing. Like I said, a lot of changes still to happen.

Of course, where there is a future, there is too a past. If Na'vi is like what I've proposed, it should have developed a free phonetic order. I can't say what Na'vi is (was) without Frommer's approval, but I can speculate: there were no fricative-initial clusters as fricatives could still end syllables and [ʊ] was a part of the vowel inventory before it fused with <u>. I also propose that any voiced phones developed later and have never followed the same rules as their voiceless counterparts. These are just some ideas, but, of course, there's nothing without Frommer. So, anyway, these are my thoughts...do you all have any ideas along these lines?

['Oma Tirea]

I too have been doing a lot of contemplating of the Proto-Na'vi phonology under the hood, which surely took place within several millenia in the past.  Specifically when is not certain.

Spoiler: Speculative thoughts

For vowels, Na'vi at one point had just 6 vowels: [a], [e], [i], [o], [u], and [ə].

Clearly these aren't the vowels of modern Na'vi, so what happened?

Some versions of [a] became [æ] while others stayed [a]
[e] became [ɛ] for the most part, but in a few cases, it became [ɪ]
Some versions of [i] laxed to [ɪ], but others stayed the same.
Some versions of [u] laxed to [ʊ] but the soon merged back to a free-form variation between the two.
[ae] and [ai] became the diphthong [aj]
[ao] and [au] became the diphthong [aw]
Other diphthongs were quite rare, most of then shifting to an approximant-vowel sequence, but [eo] and [eu] became [ɛw].
[ə] for the most part got elided, and some consonant clusters were formed.  However in a few cases before L and R, 'LL and 'RR were formed.

For consonants:
[p], [t], and [k] remaining unaspirated, didn't have much change.
Presumably, Na'vi at one point had [ph], [th], and [kh], but those lenited to [f], [s], and [x] respectively.  These same consonants also came about from lenition from later times.  Lastly, in modern Na'vi, [x] became [h].
At one point, Na'vi had [b], [d], and [g], but almost all cases of [b] lenited to [v], others becoming [p].  [d] became devoiced to [t], and  [g] became devoiced to [k].
most likely, some cases of [s] became [z].
Na'vi didn't have [ŋ] until later.  Before that it was either [ŋk] or [ŋg] or more rarely [g].
The ejectives were once consonant clusters: [pʔ], [tʔ], and [kʔ].  Only in a handful of words, such as tsap'alute, did the former plosive become unreleased.
[ɾ] was once [r].

This deduces early Na'vi as having these consonants: [b], [d], [g], [h], [k], [l], [m], [n], [p], [r], [t] and [ʔ].
As well as these consonant clusters: [pʔ], [tʔ], [kʔ], [ph], [th], [kh], and later [ts], which became Na'viyä only affricate.

At one point, Na'vi could have been more tonal than it is today.

For morphophonology:
It is likely that -l was once -ìlì, but later the first ì got elided after vowels, and the second ì got elided altogether.
-ti/-ti and -ru/-ur were probably once -iti and -uru, with somewhat varying elision.
-yä was once -ä for every word.  The [j] was an epenthesis.  Sometimes in modern Na'vi, the ä is elided in pronouns.
-ri was once always -ìri, but like -ìlì first ì got elided after vowels.
Certain prefixes and later adpositions began to cause lenition.  The words vol and zam did this too with the basic numerals.


Overall, I'm not sure about Na'vi changing to extremes like English and some other natural languages, but perhaps there could be a distant dialect of the ancestors of the Na'vi.

[wm.annis]

Sticking with human language as the model for language change, [ŋ] is unlikely to have developed millennia ago, especially as a syllable onset.  It is a rather unstable sound.

['Oma Tirea]

Ngaru tìyawr, slight wording issue.  Fixed above.

Anyone who would like to speculate a timeline for my above post, feel free to do so.

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

Ma 'Oma, how did you manage to work this out? I am trying to recall what linguistics background you have. But nevertheless, it is amazing.

One very interesting thing about Na'vi over any 'Rrtan language is the long history the language has, as no 'Rrtan society (or even civilization as we know it) has existed as long as the Na'vi have.